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Exercise: Thinking about location

For this exercise, I scouted 4 different locations. The first location was some marsh land. I used some Kodak Portra film on my Rolleiflex to elicit great natural looking tones in gorgeous soft evening light. I shot the model from a few metres back to give the scene a bit more context, but the low angle I shot from along with the square format shot gave the model more prominence than there might have been. I feel overall there is balance between the model and background.

For the next shot, I had my model stand in some bamboo. I’ve always been a fan of playing around with depth of field for impact in a portrait shot. This was a tricky shot because the textures created by the bamboo on the right side of the frame could have been drawn the viewer’s gaze far too much. However I had the model turn towards the evening light, and this contrast between the rest of the frame weights the viewer’s attention back to the model. This was shot with a 50mm lens.

The third image was shot in an underpass. I picked it as a location as I found the interplay between the strong shadows created by the bridge interesting. However I quickly realised that I’d made a mistake with composition when I first saw the results. The light at the other end of the tunnel created too much of a competing anchor point in the portraits. I used a 50mm lens again with a roll of Tungsten film (hence the bluish hue) which I was going to use for the final location.

The final image is in a night market on Tungsten film with a 50mm lens. This was an opportunity to play around with single artificial light sources for dramatic effect. I really like the results of some of the shots, and the image I’ve chosen is uncropped and is straight from the film scan. I kept the large negative space in the frame as I feel it serves to emphasise the light falling on the model. I had the model position her chin upwards towards the light to catch her expression and create a focal point.